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Music

The music program within the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences offers a broad base for understanding music as an art form and as a social, economic and political practice. The department’s faculty of scholars and creative artists includes members of the National Symphony and Kennedy Center orchestras. All students, regardless of their majors, may perform with vocal and instrumental jazz groups, orchestra, choruses, bands, opera productions, chamber music groups and musical theater.

Related Majors, Minors, and Concentrations

The department offers a minor in music and in jazz studies. Music students often major or minor in theater or dramatic literature.

What can I expect to learn in the Music program at GW?

The department offers foundational courses in music theory, history, composition, performance and ethnomusicology as well as a variety of upper-level seminars that prepare students for their required senior projects.

What is the Music community like at GW?

Noisy! GW musicians make music seven days a week, performing in venues on and off campus, around D.C. and beyond Washington. Thanks to one-on-one lessons and small classes and ensembles, students get to know each other and enjoy encouraging and productive relationships with faculty members.

What can I do in the Music field?

Within the last few years, our music graduates have pursued advanced education in performance, composition, conducting, jazz, musicology and arts administration. GW musicians have built successful careers as freelance performers, teachers, scholar-professors, managers and development specialists in the arts. Music majors are also working in medicine, dentistry, law and information technology.

Independent Projects

Every music major completes an independent capstone project in his or her senior year and participates in a seminar that tracks the projects as they develop.